Friday, February 17, 2006

24 Hours of TV Press Release

24 Hours of TV – Don’t Just Watch TV, Live It

Beginning at noon, Pacific Time, next Saturday, February 25, 2006, celebrated author and Internet specialist Special K, along with his wise-cracking-yet-amiable sidekick b1-66er, will spend 24 hours straight in front of a television set in suburban Campbell, California. The event will be covered on the Internet as it occurs, both on a Web site dedicated to the purpose and in a dedicated AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) chat room. The public is encouraged to check in on the progress of the event, or even participate.

Watch or Join In?

The entire 24 Hours of TV (24HoTV) event will be covered before, during and after the actual viewing on the blog: www.24HoursOfTV.BlogSpot.com. Both Special K and b1-66er will be providing extensive commentary on the Web site along with color commentary in a dedicated AIM chat room. Further, anyone stepping forward to commit the same 24 hour period of time for TV viewing will be granted author privileges as a true participant. “I just want it to be fun,” Special K says. Interested parties should seek the 24HoTV site for more details.

A Stupid Idea Creates the Rule of Motion

Special K explains the background of the project: “I’m offered hundreds of program choices on TV. When I look at the listings I'm intrigued by the potential for strangeness, badness, and camp, but I never make the time to actually watch. I had an idea: plant myself in front of the TV and switch channels randomly. I want it to be strange, so I’ll change them frequently.” He pauses then adds, “It’s a really stupid idea.”

As with a shark’s inherent need to swim to live, 24HoTV is guided by the general Rule of Motion. Every 15 minutes, a channel on DirecTV will be randomly chosen and the channel will be changed – regardless of what is being watched at the time and irrespective of the channel being changed to (as long as there is a coherent signal).

General Mills Balks at the “Official Food of 24HoTV” – Food Sponsorship Welcomed

In a 24 hour time period, Special K and b1-66er are certain to get hungry. Clearly Totino’s Pizza Rolls should be the Official Food of 24HoTV and yet repeated efforts to contact General Mills for product sponsorship during the event have gone unanswered. B1-66er explains, “I went to the General Mills Web site, but their email communication ‘feature’ didn’t work. So I sent a FAX explaining what was happening. Two days go by, no answer. So I call their customer line and get pushed to a marketing rep only to find she was on vacation. I call her stand in and what do I get? No response.” B1-66er gets teary-eyed, adding, “Jeepers, you’d think they’d be proud to sponsor us. It’s tough when you think you’re covertly hated by such a fine company as General Mills. I’m losing sleep over it -- just not my R.E.M. sleep, thank goodness.”

A spokesperson for Polterzeitgeist Productions puts it this way, “The 'K' and the 'Sixer' are good men. Like all good men, they need to be fed, not mistreated like alley-way curs. Pizza rolls aren’t the only answer to this problem. I’m confident that a creative and understanding food corporation will step through and help the lads.” Definitely an opportunity worth considering given that Special K's personal Web site has a higher Google PageRank than even that of General Mills.

Why 24HTV?

B1-66er says, “I like doing interesting and unusual things. 24HoTV is a weird idea and I can think of no one I’d rather do it with than Special K.” Mr. Knaster takes a different view, “I just want to write about 24 Hours of Television as my mind drips away.”